


I wondered if perhaps you would Tell Me.

by stabbitytuesday



Category: Charlotte Holmes Series - Brittany Cavallaro
Genre: Both characters are underage, F/M, Past Sexual Assault, slight spoilers for The Last of August
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13590267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stabbitytuesday/pseuds/stabbitytuesday
Summary: One would have more success soaking up the English Channel with a cotton swab than keeping a teenage boy from thinking about sex. Specifically, sex with his closest friend, soul mate, and perpetual pain in his ass.





	I wondered if perhaps you would Tell Me.

**Author's Note:**

> Jamie and Charlotte talk about sex. It goes slightly better than you might expect. Warnings are the result of me being very careful, both characters are underage and there's no actual sex, though there is mention of canon past sexual assault. Slight spoilers for The Last of August, though not much plot related.

It happened in her bed. In Berlin, in the tiny little nest above her tiny little lab, with August and Milo and god knew how many sets of eyes and ears just down the hall, scheming or overthrowing small governments or whatever the hell it was they got up to when normal people slept and dreamed and lived their normal lives.

(This was a melodramatic train of thought, even for Jamie, but the rain had started while they were holed up researching, and the soft patter against the window and Charlotte was rather warming than usual, curled up with a sheaf of papers at the other end of the bed, and he was inclined to give in to the Romantic that seemed to have beat his good sense into a corner with a stick)

He’d been inclined, initially, to chalk her obvious agitation up to a dead end and more than her usual lack of sleep. Maybe even a bit to the stress of what she had to consider to be a failure on her part to track down one of the few people in her life she seemed to love, genuinely and without complication. But now, as she stared into space, in his shirt, winding her fingers into the hem tightly enough to render it unwearable, Jamie began to see how badly that theory fit.

“Have-” She stuttered, stopped, and the edge of a fear he hadn’t felt since he’d burst out of his father’s house in the new snow crept up the back of his throat. Jamie waited, patiently, sitting up slightly on the uncomfortably stacked pillows behind him and tried not to give into the beginnings of a panic.

She huffed through her nose, and started again. “Have- no, you have. I know this, you’re a teenage boy and it’s beyond your control. What I mean to say is that, when you’ve... wanted-” Jamie opened his mouth and she cut him off with a sharp hand and a quiet snort, “I’m not angry, or offended, and we’ve both established a sort of, I suppose, mutual attraction. I think it’s mutual. I wouldn’t know for certain, from experience. What I mean to say is that I wonder if you’d tell me.”

It was only the knowledge that this was a delicate situation, and gaping wouldn’t help, that kept Jamie from letting himself stare blankly at her as he processed what exactly she’d been saying. “Tell you.”

“Yes. Tell me.”

He breathed, deeply and very self consciously under her stare, and tried to figure out what exactly she was asking. Because she couldn’t possibly be asking him to do what he thought she might be asking him to do, couldn’t want him to spill out the thoughts he’d had at night in his room at Sherringford when Tom was off with Lena, in the showers at his flat as she chatted with Shelby or judged his bookshelves and found them wanting.

(And truly, spill was a much too on-the-nose word to choose, in this particular situation, but what else would fit?)

“You want me to tell you what I.. what-”

“Yes what you-”

“When it’s about you.” He finished in a huff, sitting up straighter and laying his book down open across his lap. “Is there any point in me asking why?”

She shrugged, looking as embarrassed as she possibly ever had in her life, and clearly forced herself to look him in the eye. “Because. I want to know. You don’t have to, if you’re uncomfortable, I can guess plenty as it is, but I want to hear you say it.”

They returned to silence, and she to her notes, absorbed in whatever brushstroke analysis Leander had been working on, or at least what he’d told Jamie’s father about, before his disappearance.

Jamie, meanwhile, pondered.

Mostly, he wondered just how much Holmes would guess right, how many of his idle fantasies were obvious to anyone willing to both know him and spend the time thinking about it. After that, for a moment, he wondered how much she’d guess wrong. And how much she’d let her cynicism, her past, for lack of a better word, color her judgement of him.

“They’re pretty standard, really.” She didn’t move, proving his theory that she hadn’t been reading her research any more than he’d been reading his novel, and he was almost pleased with himself. “The lab, usually, after a long night. That time-” he paused, stared deliberately off into the middle distance, voice much too casual, “that time you blindfolded me, sometimes.”

She stiffened, and Jamie loathed himself for the moment it took to turn back to her and see the absolute lack of revulsion, and the presence of something very different, settle across her face.

“Really.”

“Yes. Or sometimes in my room, but not since everything happened, or yours at Sherringford. Here, a little. Anywhere it seems like you’ve been comfortable.”

Holmes barely seemed to breathe, and cocked her head to the side just a hair. “Comfortable.”

Jamie wanted to smile, to watch her, to let loose the impulse to tease and flirt and coax her closer to him, but this was Holmes, and her Watson, and he restrained himself. “That’s the big thing. That you’re comfortable. Even before I found out about- anyone who met you would know it would take at least that much for you to want anything yourself. _Want_ want, at least”

Was the air thicker? Had Milo turned the heat on? Shit, had he been listening in on the entire conversation? It would be odd if he didn’t, actually, but still, one could dream that he’d decided to play at having manners.

“And what happens? In the lab?” There was a flush to Holmes’ cheeks, her breath was shallow, and Jamie gripped the edges of the hardback book in his lap as he pressed it down just in case.

“You’re curious. And you feel safe, with me, where you are. And you want to know what it’s like in real life, not just books.”

“Cliche.”

“Yes, well. Teenage boy. There are worse ways to be uncreative and stereotypical.”

She hesitated, and turned to look him in the eye once more. “The blindfold? Really?”

“That’s not even close to weird, lots of people get off on that kind of thing.”

“Liar.” And she was right. Of course she was, she was Charlotte Holmes. “You thought it would make me feel safer if you were a step behind. If I was sure I could leave if I wanted to.”

He watched her, not answering, which was an answer in itself, really. And she smiled. “You’re right. It would probably make it easier.”

“Then we can. If you ever want to.”

“I just might. One day.”


End file.
